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Stephen T Casper

@neurotimes.bsky.social

4.7K followers 760 following 2.4K posts

Historian of medicine, violence, and sport. I also love neurology, neuroscience and the human sciences. Author of books, articles, anthologies, and expert reports. Keywords: 19~20thC; health policy; indigenous studies; gender; CTE; concussion; TBI

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · Jan 2

I will write a longer essay on why I’m unconcerned about generative Ai. However, I want to show you in 2 photos why “information” only approach, as LLMs approach knowledge, is an insufficient way to understand subjective realities. Behold: a copy of Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop!

An old copy of Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop, opened to the cover page.

Evidence that the pages of this edition are uncut, meaning no one ever uses a letter opener on them. The pages form a semi-circle going back to the binding, making the arch inside impossible to read.

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

Counterpoint: He and his minions don’t care and anticipated that. He has a solid 30% behind him as shock troops and knows that it has often been fringe movements that have conquered and controlled destinies. eg Most Iranians hate their Regime.

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t know how to create a social movement and moment, but I have to tell you that if I could get every voter in America who is sad right now to don a chicken riders costume for Halloween in protest, I would feel like I had created the sublime!

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

If we are seriously determined to go all Kent State, let’s go down as literal inflatable chicken riders. One for the history books comrades. In the future, the Fascist anointed will whisper the stories to their kids: “they came as 🐓 “ They came in clutches of them. We fought with everything we could

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

You too can ride a chicken in a clutch of protestors in Portland, Chicago, Memphis.

We ride for the open road! We are the ones who crossed it.

We ride for Dolly Parton! For Frodo and Sam! For the spirit of Spirited Away!

KOOY Inflatable Adult Halloween Costumes Blow up Chicken Ride on Rooster Costume for Halloween Funny Riding Costume Men Women Cosplay Party

KOOY Inflatable Costume Adult, Chicken Costume, Inflatable Costumes Women Men, Ride On Rooster Costumes Fancy Funny Chicken Suit Blow up for Halloween Party

www.amazon.com

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

Or we can be:

Freddy Woke Professor

A giant Tylenol pill

Free Love Cracker Barrel

NYTs Both Sides Are Bad Effigy

Antifa Gun Control Advocate

Texan National Guardsman who loves Chicago Pizza and Hotdogs

The Moral Consciousness of Fox News

Susan Collins Greatest Fears - a CD album cover

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

One of the problems with my team’s leadership is that they are way to serious.

Blah blah blah Fascism

Blah blah blah Authoritarian sliding

My dudes. We need to consider the upsides. We finally all get to buy inflatable rainbow unicorn costumes!

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

Im
Changing
Nothing
But
The
World!

(I might have to buy an inflatable Halloween costume!)

a person in an inflatable unicorn costume is standing in a living room .

ALT: a person in an inflatable unicorn costume is standing in a living room .

media.tenor.com

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

Yep. Grim.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 1d

Some % of the problems we have today, our contemporary moral problems, are the result of grade inflation.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 3d

It says something about our historical moment that:

The people who hate the government are demanding that the people who like the government open the government so that they can then shut the government down by getting rid of it.

Also the people who are allegedly very violent want gun control.

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

Okay. Well one of us is anonymously calling the other person with a real name names. I read the whole thread and disagreed with your interpretation. Now that we have deteriorated we can stop. Thank for your contributions.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

Irrelevant for you and to you. Right? Because your own way of speaking and thinking and even expressing yourself is open to interpretation, and I am responding, trying to do so in a respectful way, that says I think it is relevant to those very questions. And that metaphors are the real world…

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

See that’s overdrawn also. The human brain has similar problems as well, and the problem makes us uniquely human. One of the things about, say, emotions, is that they’re phenomenological. Many LLM limits analogize to human limits for this reason.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

some random thoughts

The people being called violent presently are called extreme because they want gun control.ñ

People are surprised that an obscene concentration of wealth does not in fact trickle down very fast

People who lend the government money are very uninterested in paying taxes

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

My good fellow… that’s far more impressive than you realize.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

Well… see your comment is also wrongheaded. For example, I answer: an LLM cannot use neuronal circuitry to produce thought for the simple reason that it is not neuronal. It will never be neuronal. You could say “that’s not what I mean” but it basically underscores we are arguing about metaphors.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

I’m quite a fanboy actually. But precisely because I think it has created new metaphors for the nervous system and the brain, and fairly powerful ones for thinking about our own inexplicablity

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

You seem to be eliding, perhaps decently, the painful fact that we have no more real explanation of how Broca’s area produces speech than we do how LLMs end up making choices when, say, all options are equally good. As for instance:

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

My good fellow, there are all kinds of things that are unable to do what the human brain does that are still brains. And many of those things have a great deal to teach us about human brains. Some are quite analogous like the leech ganglion. Others are metaphorical, like the computer.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

Oh? The very ambiguity of your response creates an interesting psychoanalytic joke effortlessly lol

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

I agree. It’s at least some kind of analogous neuropsychological function.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 4d

People seem to have a very odd notion that we actually know what our brains/minds do. You appear to trigger them by pointing out that we don’t. I’m rather amused.

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 5d

It’s odd that absolutely no one in media has been writing macroeconomic criticism of our present condition in the USA. The math doesn’t work: Fear. Lack of government investment. Acceleration of debt. Contracts that are voided Willy Nilly. Tariffs as a flat tax. All of this - is bad math.

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Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 9d

Conscience is no license; it is a burden freely carried — even when it leads to a jail cell.

Stephen T Casper @neurotimes.bsky.social · 9d

When law and conscience conflict, the just path is never simple. To follow conscience may mean standing apart, but never above. It is just only when one accepts the consequence without harming others, acts without hatred, and preserves the humanity even of those who oppose them.

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